Wednesday, July 11, 2012

One year ago on July 1,
2011, approximately 6,600 inmates across California launched a hunger
strike in protest of conditions at Pelican Bay State Prison. The
leaders of the strike were a group of prisoners referred to as the
Pelican Bay Short Corridor Collective, a multiracial group of prisoners.

The group issued five demands:
1. End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse
2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria
3. Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s
Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary
Confinement
4. Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food
5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.
The strike would last three weeks before coming to an end. Several
strikers would be hospitalized. The strike brought attention to the
widespread use of solitary confinement in California; currently,
approximately three thousand inmates are held in one of California’s
three Security Housing Units, where inmates determined to be gang
members are sentenced to indefinite terms in solitary confinement. Those
sentenced to the SHU for gang validation must either become an
informant and leave the gang, must be inactive for six years, or they
must parole from their sentence; the phrase “Parole, Snitch, or Die”
captures the means of leaving the SHU.

The strike prompted the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee to hold a hearing
on the issue of long-term solitary confinement in California’s prisons.
Corrections officials defended their use of the SHU, arguing that it
was necessary in controlling prison gangs. Critics pointed to the mounting evidence of the detrimental effects of solitary confinement, the absence of due process in gang validation, and the fact that many inmates have been isolated for decades.

The hunger strike would not be the last. On September 26, 2011, prisoners would launch another hunger strike that would also last approximately three weeks.

At least two hunger strikers would commit suicide.

Smaller strikes would follow at Corcoran State Prison’s Administrative Segregation Unit months later. One hunger striker, Christian Gomez, would die during the strike.

In March 2012, California Correctional officials released a new gang validation policy.
The plan revised the criteria for being validated a gang member and
implemented a step-down program in which inmates could hypothetically be
released from the SHU in four years, instead of the average of 6.8
years. This plan would
Many of the original hunger strike leaders issued a counterproposal.
Several have commented that the proposed reforms are inadequate and
argue instead that placement in solitary should be based on conduct
rather than real or suspected prison gang membership.

On May 31, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a federal lawsuit
on behalf of Pelican Bay SHU inmates who have been in solitary
confinement for over 10 years, arguing that such long terms in solitary
constitute violations of the Eighth Amendment. In addition the lawsuit
challenges the gang validation system, arguing that the current system
is a denial of Due Process rights.

To date, there remain over 3,000 inmates in Security Housing Units,
and thousands more housed in solitary confinement in one of several
Administrative Segregation Units across the state.

It remains to be seen how the new CDCR policies are implemented and how the many inmates effected by them will react.

Break the Chains.info

is a news and discussion forum for supporters of political prisoners, prisoners of war, politicized social prisoners, and victims of police and state intimidation.

This blog is organized and updated autonomously of the disbanded Break the Chains Prisoner Support Network formerly based in Eugene, Oregon. While this online project shares several of the same concerns as the old Break the Chains collective, no formal organization exists behind the current web presence.

"I will never surrender my pride and dignity nor allow the system to 'cut my tongue' and I will always, without fear, speak out against these war crimes and crimes against humanity, no matter if I spend the rest of my life in a prison cage, and draw my last breath of air laying down in this steel bed surrounded by razor-wire fences and cages, and its prison policies that are designed to destroy one's humanity…."